Johns Hopkins
FOR UNIVERSITY THAT QUESTIONS EVERYTHING, TRANE PROVIDES THE RIGHT ANSWER
JOHNS HOPKINS NEEDS A NEW HVAC SYSTEM BUT FIRST TRANE HAS TO PROVE ITSELF
Johns Hopkins University researchers know a thing or two about finding information. They launched their own spacecraft to Mercury to obtain an accurate understanding of the majority of its surface, and made national news by proving how touch-screen voting machines are prone to fraud. So when their cooling plant needed two additional chillers to meet the demands of a three-building expansion, obviously they were going to explore before deciding on a solution. According to Steve McAdams of RMF Engineering in Baltimore, “The owner needed to know what changes were necessary to prepare for the future.” So, this being Johns Hopkins, they did exactly what you’d think they would do—they conducted a study.
Johns Hopkins commissioned a comprehensive central plant life-cycle evaluation. Hopkins also tapped RMF Engineering of Baltimore to study and evaluate their chiller energy consumption, pumping energy costs, and system maintenance costs. These studies yielded three basic findings: 5,000 tons of additional chiller capacity would be required, the new chillers would be principally intended for base-load service, so efficiency was important, and TRANE CenTraVac™ chillers were the smartest choice. So Johns Hopkins ordered two 2,400-ton TRANE duplex CenTraVac chillers and they were put into production in Trane’s factory in La Crosse, WI. But Hopkins wasn’t quite done asking questions.
Once built, Hopkins Power Plant Manager, David Chalmers ordered capacity and performance tests to be conducted in the factory. According to Chalmers, “We were confident Trane would pass the tests. But it was our objective to get a baseline for capacity and efficiency that we could use in our installation.” Finally, after all questions had been answered the new CenTraVac chillers were installed, it was then that Johns Hopkins had some rather pleasant findings. They discovered that the chillers could be powered directly by backup electric-generation equipment for the university’s hospital. They also discovered that because of redundancy features built into Trane’s design, they would never face a cooling emergency. As Chalmers explains, “In effect if you lose one compressor, you still have half of that machine’s capacity available.” CenTraVac also lets them handle variable demand, with the ability to drop chiller load quickly. Of course, these are only a few features, and as Johns Hopkins discovered, the more you research Trane CenTraVac chiller technology, the more it’s the obvious choice.
|